1956 - THE SEARCHERS - on the big screen.

John Ford's The Searchers is back in a new restoration and making the rounds at revival theaters.  This was probably John Ford's best film since The Quiet Man and probably his last masterpiece.

Ford certainly had his high and low points during the 1950's but with this film he finally had his best story in years,  Ford as was his custom loaded up the cast with a lot of his favorite actors, the famous John Ford stock company as it was called.  Ford also had John Wayne as the lead.  Ford and Wayne had been working together since Ford's silent film days.

 

Just as important as the cast was Ford's film crew.  Winton C. Hoch wsa a master technicolor cameraman who had worked on and off with Ford.  At times Hoch and Ford had a fairly stormy relationship since Hoch was a perfectionist when it came to cinematography but the results were certainly worth it.  Writing the screenplay was Frank S. Nugent who had worked with Ford starting in the 1940's.  Most importantly was the producer Meriam C. Cooper who found the property, raised the money for the production and brought Ford into it.  What all these men had in common was their ability to deal with the cantankerous and a times abusive director. not always an easy task.

 

Ford filmed much of The Searchers in Monument Valley Arizona a location he was very familiar with.  By this time in his career he knew every place that would feature the best locations while filming.  The on location photography is certainly spectacular. 

Although The Searchers is a western, the themes of racism, the treatment of Native Americans and miscegenation are present in the film.  In one of the only times in his career John Wayne  played a racist.  This was fairly tough stuff for the 1950's.  In many ways The Searchers was a career peak for John Ford who probably should have retired after this film but continued to work into the 1960's

The Searchers is not a perfect film but it is a great one. The running time is 119 minutes.

1937 - WEE WILLIE WINKIE, one of John Ford's stranger films

There are many famous director actor collaborations.  Scorcese and DeNiro, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, John Ford and John Wayne.  But leave it to Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox to team macho director John Ford with 30's child star Shirley Temple.  When a director was under contract to a film studio he frequently didn't have much say in what project he would be working on.

There are reportedly several versions of Ford's reaction to working with Shirley Temple, but you can be sure he wasn't exactly pleased about it.  Much to the surprise of everyone involved in this production including John Ford, he got along very well with Shirley Temple.  Wee Willie Winkie had a fairly large budget for a Shirley Temple film and Ford was able to infuse much of his style into this film.  While working with Shirley Temple, Ford discovered that for an eight year old girl, she was unusually talented and focused on her work.  She worked well with her co-star Victor McLaglen and didn't seem to have an issue with Ford's notorious abuse of actors.

 

Wee Willie Winkie is still a Shirley Temple film when all is said and done although a rather superior one.  Ford shows his mastery of action with one great battle scene.  The black and white photography is impressive and I have to say overall this is an entertaining film.  Darryl F. Zanuck's instincts in matching Ford and Temple paid off, the film is one of her better efforts and it was a successful money maker for the studio. If the film has a low point it's the subplot with the young lovers which the viewer has to endure.  Fortunately they aren't in much of the film.

The film was written by Julien Josephson, Ernest Pascal and  Mordaunt Shairp.  The running time is 100 minutes.

1930 - MEN WITHOUT WOMEN, an early John Ford film.

This John Ford film exists as one of those hybrid sound/silent pictures that Hollywood was making as they made the transition to sound films.

Men Without Women is based on an original story from Ford and the writer James Kevin McGuinness.   The film is about a submarine trapped on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and efforts of the Navy to rescue the men inside. 

 

With the exception of a lengthy scene set in a bar, the film looks like it was photographed on one or two sets which probably made Fox studios happy.  The acting is typical of an early 30's movie with some of the actors emoting all over the place like they were in a stage play.

 

If the film is notable at all, its probably because it has a couple of people who were associated with John Ford as his career began to take off.  Joseph August was the cameraman and Dudley Nichols was the screenwriter.  Both of these men made significant contributions to Ford's films in the 1930's and 40's.

The running time is 77 minutes.

1936 - THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND, the story of Dr. Samuel Mudd

John Ford brings his sophisticated visual skills to the true story of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the man who treated John Wilkes Booth after his assassination of  President Abraham Lincoln.  The film presents Mudd as a man caught up in circumstances beyond his control a victim of a vengeful United States Government.  Mudd was sentenced to Shark Island a penitentiary in Florida where he ended up having to deal with a yellow fever epidemic in the prison.  

 

The real life story of Dr. Mudd is considerably more complicated.  He apparently did have some contact with three of the conspirators of the Lincoln assassination and didn't report John Wilkes Booth's visit for at least a day.  Never let the truth get in the way of a movie I guess.

In any case, Ford used all of his visual composition skills and along with the skill of his cinematographer Bert Glennon, the film is very impressive to look at.  Ford also got some good performances out of Warner Baxter as Dr. Mudd and in his first appearance in a John Ford film, John Carradine as a sadistic prison guard.   The film is an excellent civil war drama directed by a master director at the peak of his abilities.

 

 

The film was written by Nunnally Johnson one of Hollywood's top screenwriters who had a lot to do with the high quality of the film.  It runs 96 minutes.

1960 - SERGEANT RUTLEDGE - John Ford takes on racism

John Ford's film about racism in the United States Cavalry has got a few issues to put it mildly.  The screenplay is a hodgepodge of murder mystery, western and a comment on racism in the United States.  The film also has a lot of actors really chewing the scenery along with Ford's goofy humor.

 

Another issue is the casting of African American actor Woody Strode as Sergeant Rutledge who is accused of raping and murdering a white girl.  Strode looks great but he really struggles to act.

 

Setting all of that aside, it's still a good film.  It brings up a number of interesting points about racism in the United States and Ford frequently marshals his visual skills particularly during the court martial trial sequences to keep the film moving along.

 

Finally, this is a John Ford film and the majority of his films are for the most part interesting and worthwhile viewing.  He was one of the old masters of film making.

James Warner Beliah and Willis Goldbeck wrote the original screenplay the film runs 111 minutes

1948 - FORT APACHE on BLU RAY

This Blu Ray disc lets the viewer enjoy Ford's spectacular visual compositions in Monument Valley.  It's one gorgeous shot after another without overwhelming the story.

As usual with viewing Fort Apache, the fascination in the story is watching Henry Fonda essentially play the villain in this film.  John Wayne continued to improve as an actor and this is one of his best late 40's roles.  I think it's safe to say that the acting in the film is at a fairly high caliber.  Ford was not only a master of the visual but when he set his mind to it he was a very good director of actors as wel

The one acting exception in the film is Shirley Temple,  the one time child star who Ford had worked with when she was younger.  Her performance is full of actor tricks.  In particular her constant mugging and camera hogging almost brings the love story subplot crashing down around her and her then husband John Agar.

A good example of John Ford in his prime after his war service in World War II,  Ford is simplifying his approach to telling a story.

125 minutes, written by Frank Nugent.

1955 - MISTER ROBERTS, film version of the famous 50's play

Considering all the behind the scene drama during the production of this film it's amazing Mister Roberts turned out as well as it did.

Henry Fonda had performed the play for three years on Broadway and was locked into his interpretation of how it should be presented.  John Ford would have seemed to have been the perfect director for a story about the navy.  However Fonda was extremely unhappy with the changes Ford made in the play.  The end result was Ford leaving the picture and Mervyn LeRoy finishing it.

You can certainly tell what parts Ford directed.  All of the exterior shots on the ship and at Midway Island are Ford's work.  The later scenes set in the studio have that phony sound stage look to them.

Still, the film turned out pretty well.  Fonda is very good as Mister Roberts.

123 minutes.

1959 - THE HORSE SOLDIERS, John Ford's Civil War drama

A big budget Civil War film.  John Ford was a noted Civil War history buff but for various reasons the film didn't really meet anyone's expectations.  The chief problem seems to be the script.  Although it is "based on a true story" for whatever that's worth. 

 

 The Horse Soldiers is about a Union raid into the deep South around 1863.  The inclusion of a love interest for John Wayne in the film and a very contrived conflict between Wayne's Union Colonel and William Holden's doctor is really hard to believe and adds nothing to the story.

Still it's an entertaining film.  Ford is able to muster some of his strength's in composition and the cinematographer William Clothier has given the film a beautiful golden look.  This is a professional piece of film making.  Let's face it they can't all be masterpieces from John Ford.  But he did know how to tell a story.  Most John Ford fans don't really care for this film, but it's good on it's own merits.

119 minutes,  John Lee Mahin and Martin Rackin,.

1949 - SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, on Blu Ray

One of John Ford's most beautiful westerns. Filmed in technicolor by Winton Hoch, one of the top color cameramen in Hollywood.

John Wayne gave one of his best performances in this film.

This Blu Ray looks great.  The on location photography of Monument Valley in Arizona has never looked so stunning.

103 minutes, written by Frank Nugent and Laurence Stallings.

1946 - MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, another excellent Blu Ray from Criterion

A great disc from Criterion.  My Darling Clementine's photography really jumps out with it's stunning black and white images.

It's well documented that Darryl F. Zanuck ended up reworking the film much to Ford's displeasure but it appears that Zanuck got rid of a lot of Ford's cornball humor and indulgent character touches.  A pre-release version is featured on this new disc but it's no undiscovered Director's Cut of great scenes.

Henry Fonda had worked with Ford on Young Mr. Lincoln and his understated performance is very impressive.  Fonda was no John Wayne and the film really benefits from that.  The rest of the cast particularly Victor Mature as Doc Holliday was very good.

Ford directs, that's him on the floor staging the dance sequence he's between the flags.

This was the last picture on Ford's contract for Zanuck.  Zanuck made sure this was an "A" quality production.  The set for the town of Tombstone was actually constructed in Monument Valley to take advantage of the scenery.

Ford was a master of filming long shots.  His sophisticated visual scene is quite striking on My Darling Clementine.

97 minutes, written by Samuel G. Engel and Winston Miller.

1931 - THE SEAS BENEATH - early John Ford Navy film

This early John Ford film doesn't have a lot of his special visual touches, it's mostly a straight up adventure story.  During World War 1 the US Navy deploys "mystery ships," essentially decoy ships used to lure German submarines out into the open so the Navy could engage and sink them.  

Ford and his favorite 1930's writer Dudey Nichols created a story about one of these ships that had a lot of Ford's favorite themes, the profession of arms, cornball navy humor and a stolid hero. The hero in this case is George O'Brien, an early version of the character John Wayne starting playing for Ford somewhat regularly in the 1940's through the 1960's. 

The Informer, Ford's breakthrough sound film is still 4 years away.  This film seems more like a straight up 30's adventure film filmed by a studio director.  However the film is impressive for the amount of on location photography that was incorporated into the story.  There are some exciting action scenes towards the end of the film that were actually filmed at sea with a battle between the "mystery ship" and the German submarine.  

This is a decent 30's action film with the usual somewhat poor film acting.  Directors and actors were still trying to figure out how to modulate their performances in early sound films.  Visually the scenes at sea are staged pretty well, the scenes on shore with the actors are somewhat an ordeal to sit through.  A good early 30's action film.

90 minutes

1942 - TORPEDO SQUADRON 8, 1958 - THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, two short films from famous directors

The stuff that shows up on YouTube never ceases to amaze.  Here are a couple of short films from John Ford and Orson Welles that finally saw the light of day for a general public.  

Torpedo Squadron 8 was filmed before The Battle of Midway.  The squadron was completely wiped out with the exception of one survivor.  Ford had the footage edited and personally presented to the families of the dead men by members of his photographic outfit.  The eight minute film is very John Ford mourning the loss of the men while celebrating the success of the Midway battle.  The film was shot on color 16mm film.

Probably one of the more fascinating finds is this television film The Fountain of Youth written and directed by Orson Welles.  As usual with Welles he takes a small budget and pulls off some interesting visual effects with it.  Welles narrates and appears throughout the film.  In many ways this short film is as interesting and innovative as any film he directed.  This was the pilot for a proposed television series that unfortunately never came together.

Torpedo Squadron 8, 7:46 minutes.

The Fountain of Youth, 28:38 minutes.

1957 - THE GROWLER STORY, another odd career moment for John Ford

Film director and navel reserve officer John Ford was asked to dramatize an incident for the US Navy.  During World War II when the Captain of the USS Growler, Howard Gillmore was wounded during an attack by a Japanese patrol boat.  Gillmore ordered the sub to dive with him on the deck in order to save the ship from being sunk by the Japanese.

Ford brought along two of his actor cronies, Ken Curtis who played the captain and Ward Bond who played a typical Ward Bond character a loud mouthed sailor named Quincannon.

Shot in color with 16mm film by a navy camera crew, this film is mostly amateur hour with occasional moments of the John Ford touch.  Ford really indulges him self with lots of sloppy sentiment about navy traditions, (marching bands, the professional of arms, corny humor etc).  The battle scenes are rather poorly filmed, it's tough to know what exactly is going on.  But you have to give the actor Ken Curtis some credit since it appears he actually laid on the submarine's deck while the ship dived.

Well at least it's short.

22 minutes.

1962 - HOW THE WEST WAS WON, on Blu Ray

The Blu Ray producers spruced up a lot of this film, erasing most of the lines in the three camera filming process and generally cleaning things up quite a bit.  The film looks fairly spectacular at times if not completely perfect.  Of course you can't duplicate the Cinerama experience on a home screen.

The film itself was always kind of lumpy mess of a story.  It follows one family, the Prescott's as they move west with that "manifest destiny" attitude that gave white European Americans a reason
to go anywhere and take anything they wanted.  But I can be a little more charitable now since the whole story is just an excuse to film a bunch of spectacular scenes in the 3 camera process that at times still look very impressive.

MGM loaded up the film with an "all star" cast signing just about everyone they could think of but the film seems to focus mostly on two actors George Peppard and Debbie Reynolds.  Three directors were hired, George Marshall, John Ford and Henry Hathaway.  Hathaway ended up directing most of the film and apparently re-shot Marshall's footage.  Ford had a lot of trouble filming in the large screen process and the results were deemed marginal at best but nobody had the nerve to rework his footage since most people were afraid of him. 

162 minutes, written by James R. Webb.

1950 - RIO GRANDE, John Ford, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, soldiers on horseback

John Ford's western film made before The Quiet Man is what would be called a "typical" John Ford western.  Ford as usual indulges himself with scenic compositions of soldiers on horseback, military honor and lots of unspoken domestic drama at an army post in the southwest.

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara are the estranged husband and wife.  During the Civil War, Wayne's character Kirby York, (a continuation of his character from Fort Apache) burned down his wife's family plantation.  Throw in a subplot about fighting Indians who can escape to Mexico, which was an unsubtle reference to the cold war.  Oh yea forgot about The Sons of the Pioneers, a country group who show up occasionally to warble a song or two.

Ford as usual loaded the cast up with cronies from his previous film.  Victor McLaglen plays his usual boisterous Irish Sergeant.  Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr are also present for Ford to kick around.

Ford was one of the masters of scenic black and white compositions so the film looks very good.  Overall, this is a good if typically overindulgent John Ford western.

105 minutes, written by James Kevin McGuinness.

1953 - THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT, John Ford's favorite film?

By now it's fairly well known by film buffs and scholars that this is supposedly John Ford's favorite film.  It's kind of hard to believe when you compare The Sun Shines Bright to films like The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, Three Bad Men, They Were Expendable and How Green Was My Valley among others.  

If The Sun Shines Bright is Ford's favorite film it's probably because he was able to indulge himself in many of his favorite themes and situations.  There's his general feeling for a romanticized American past which he saw as a country that was now losing many of it's values by the 1950's.  Also the setting of Kentucky a state in the defeated South plays into his "victory in defeat" theme he rehashed in many of his films.  There's also the usual Ford tropes, stuff about the importance of ritual, parades, cornball comedy and a very outdated view of Black Americans.  

Not generally though of as a director good with actors, the performances are very good in this film with Charles Winninger who was usually cast in character parts playing the the main lead  Billy Priest  the southern judge up for reelection.  

Ford's direction is excellent as usual with interesting but not showy camera work and deliberate but not leisurely pacing throughout the film.  If the film seems a little patronizing especially towards Black Americans this film is infinitely preferable to Ford's first Judge Priest film with Will Rodgers.

100 minutes, written by Laurence Stallings.

1953 - MOGAMBO, one of John Ford's lesser films.

After battling Republic pictures president Herbert Yates during the making of The Quiet Man and The Sun Shines Bright, John Ford signed up with MGM for an elaborate big budget remake of Clark Gable's early "sex in the jungle" film Red Dust.

MGM and Ford hired Gable again for this remake of Red Dust now titled Mogambo.  Ava Gardner got the role of the sexy, naughty bad girl with a heart of gold and Grace Kelly got the part of the uptight and prim English wife who was basically a dirty tramp underneath all her refinement.

The plan was to shoot on location in Africa to capture some spectacular scenery.  John Ford who was a master of scenic compositions would seem to have been the perfect person to hire for this film.  Ford could do for Africa what he did for Monument Valley, the problem was that Ford hated filming in Africa.

Once Ford arrived in Africa he found out he hated everything about it, the weather, the living conditions, the animals and the dust.  Ford shot quickly and dumped large chunks of the script in order to get out of there as fast as possible.  The production ended up filming on studio sets in London.  The climatic action scenes involving gorillas were shot with a phony looking rear projection.

The end result, Mogambo is essentially a boring soap opera which shows a director completely detached and uninterested in the story, however it made money for the studio and probably didn't hurt Ford's career as a commercial director.

115 minutes, written by John Lee Mahin.